Occupy the 1% !

Lately I've been thinking. The problem with talking about evil corporations and the 99% and all of that is that in a very real sense, we have met the enemy, and he is us, to quote an old Pogo strip. These are things that WE have created. Oh, maybe we didn't intend it that way, but it was our actions, nonetheless.

Because we're linked, all of us. To slightly paraphrase an old poem, we cannot disturb a leaf without the troubling of a star. Who is behind the banks, really? Stockholders. Stockholders like Mom and Pop who have an IRA they are counting on to fund their retirement. Yes, there are the Madoffs and the Koch Brothers, but they are as rare as welfare queens. A lot less than 1%. And who makes up those evil corporations? People. Joe Citizen, the middle manager who's trying to put his kids through college. Manuel Labor, who cleans the restroom. Irving the Drone, who pushes paper, and is wondering if he will even be there next year, since his division is being eyed for dismantlement and the remains sent Offshore. And that guy who's making the decision to send it offshore? He's Joe, who's trying to keep his job by maximizing profits because Irving is a stockholder whose retirement is in the company stock. Convoluted, yes, and surreal. Corporations are an imaginary entity, and they are made up of people.

So where's the way out of this mess? Maybe there isn't one. Maybe we just have to acknowledge it as our mess and embrace it and work with it.

And I thought about it today, and here's how I'd start:You occupy the 1%. How do you do that? You embrace it as part of you and bring your own values to it, instead of trying to fight what's there. You don't make money evil, either in the having or the lack. And you start with yourself and spin it outward. Don't fight the establishment; see it as part of yourself that needs healing. I hold the vision of abundance, a world where where no one is hungry, no one is denied a job, no one is denied a roof over their head, no one is denied needed medical care.

People need to realize we're not playing king of the hill. We're climbing Everest. If you don't work as a team, someone will slip and pull the whole lot of us off of the mountain. I will carry this idea to the world, and work to have the "1%" share that vision.

And then, there will be no 1%. We will be 100%.

Unrealistic? You betcha! But you have to start somewhere, and I prefer to start from a position that inspires me.